Facebook is piloting ‘Facebook at Work’

Unless you work in a marketing environment, surfing social media is probably a big no-no. Facebook’s not too happy about that, and it’s decided to have a go at bringing social media into the office with ‘Facebook at Work’.

We first heard reports that Facebook was working on such a service back in November, and now it’s clear those reports were true. Facebook unveiled the programme today, but sadly because it’s a pilot only a select number of people get to take part for now.

According to Facebook, Facebook at Work is “a separate experience that gives employees the ability to connect and collaborate efficiently using Facebook tools.” So basically it’s a cut down version of Facebook that’s separate from your own personal profile, without any of the usual distractions that come with it.

The idea is that you’ll use Facebook as a tool to keep in touch with colleagues and contacts in the same way that you would with friends and family. It claims because it’s Facebook you don’t need to learn how to use a new system from scratch.

VentureBeat has commented on the fact that Facebook isn’t exactly known for being particularly private, so it will have to put some effort into overcoming that stigma if it wants businesses to sign up. Similarly, adverts might not go down very well with a confidential business-centric app, so Facebook is going to have to figure out how to make money from Facebook at Work.

It’s still early days yet, and we have to see how the pilot goes before we hear anything about a more widespread release. Who knows, maybe one day all your work communication will be done by Facebook instead of email.